U.S. Congress

Surrounded by the kind of big rigs and logging equipment that have defined his working life, State Senator Tom Casperson this morning announced his decision to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Casperson will also announce his plans this afternoon at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City. Over the next week, Casperson will make nearly a dozen stops across the Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula to meet with voters and discuss his intention to bring a dose of common sense to Congress.

And the numbers could mean some odd results in November, with people heading into the midterm elections pessimistic about candidates on both sides of the ballot.

“What we’re really seeing in an unprecedented way, especially in the key Senate races, is that voters don’t like either of the major candidates,” said Tom Jensen, the director of the liberal Public Policy Polling.

For example, North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan is holding a lead in her campaign for reelection, but not because she’s popular, said Jensen.

“Hagan has a -10 approval rating, and usually if you have a -10 approval rating it means you’re doomed,” he said. However, challenger Thom Tillis has a minus-23 favorability rating, much lower than Hagan’s.

Scott Clement, a polling analyst for The Washington Post, said the nation’s lawmakers are no longer getting the benefit of the doubt, and “the public has seen more and more issues where they’re just not happy about where things are going and the place they often look to blame is Washington.”

Republicans are increasingly dissatisfied, and if voters turn to a “more conservative, third party candidate” that could split the vote, Jensen warned.

But while people are dissatisfied, that isn’t necessarily transferring to primary results, where only few incumbents have lost their bids this year, pointed out NBC News’ Mark Murray.

“The one mitigating factor here is that there are so many different reasons for their dissatisfaction,” Murray said. “You have Republicans are complaining about immigration, Democrats complaining that Congress isn’t working with them, Republicans wanting to impeach the president, Democrats blaming Congress, and all of these different complaints don’t really measure up to one single unifying message that probably is going to have every member of Congress running for the hills this election season.”